Bookwyrm Logo

My new online avatar. While Scorpion was an alias I used for some time before writing Circle of Scorpion, the Scorpion/Drake duo in that story is really very dissimilar to me. It mostly boils down to the fact that I'm a generally nice person, and Scorpion and Drake do a wonderful job of scaring me at times. As such, I've taken on this little fellow as my new persona, combining my love of books with my love of dragons. I call him Eldritch.

For anybody interested in technique considerations, the bookwyrm was originally sketched in a notebook during my Computer Organization class. Then, since I knew I wouldn't be able to draw him that well again, I traced him onto graph paper, as that was the thinnest paper I could find. I inked him there so I could trace him onto blank white paper. Next, I photocopied him both so that I would have a back up and so I could try coloring him without ruining the original. So I took out my colored pencils, a cheap set of twelve I bought in the campus bookshop for an astronomy project a couple years ago, and colored the photocopy. Finally, I scanned both the "original" pencil sketch and the colored photocopy and touched up the colored version to my liking in Ulead's PhotoImpact 8.

There are two things that can be taken from this mockery of the artist's profession. First, I can't draw and should refrain from inflicting my pitiful attempts on the world at large. (You may disagree with me on this point, but the important part is to keep myself convinced of it so I can retain the ecstatic feeling I get whenever anything turns out remotely acceptable.) And second, if I can draw something like this, anybody can.

...Looking at it now, I could almost see myself getting a tattoo of something like this. Hm.